Dems Message to Bill Clinton

[Jolie Rouge]

Leading Dems Message to Bill Clinton :

PIPE DOWN !


[i]BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA !!

I hope he doesn’t take their advice. I’m enjoying tuning in to see what color Bill Clinton’s face is turning each morning and who’s on the receiving end of his campaign finger-wagging. Newsweek delivers the news: http://www.newsweek.com/id/96385


Prominent Democrats are upset with the aggressive role that Bill Clinton is playing in the 2008 campaign, a role they believe is inappropriate for a former president and the titular head of the Democratic Party. In recent weeks, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, both currently neutral in the Democratic contest, have told their old friend heatedly on the phone that he needs to change his tone and stop attacking Sen. Barack Obama, according to two sources familiar with the conversations who asked for anonymity because of their sensitive nature. Clinton, Kennedy and Emanuel all declined to comment.

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama Calls Bill Clinton A Liar

In an interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts, Obama takes Bill Clinton to task over "statements that are not factually accurate":


"You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," Obama said. "He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts -- whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas."

"This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate," Obama said.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4AV_EzKRYw


Obama didn't actually say Bill Clinton is a liar. He was more polite saying Bill's statements aren't "factually accurate" and are "not supported by the facts."

According to Roberts, Obama was apparently referring to Clinton's "fairy tale" comment and Clinton's assertion that Nevada union officials backing Obama were strong-arming members into caucusing for Obama.

This is certainly not the first time Bill Clinton has been accused of failing to tell the truth. Even Clinton admitted that answers he gave about Ms. Lewinsky during a 1998 deposition were false and that he "knowingly gave misleading and evasive answers." Obama is making a mistake here. He should not be out front calling Bill Clinton a liar. Just as Hillary is having Bill do her dirty work, Obama should use surrogates to call the former president a liar.

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For some reason I'm reminded of ...
... this (start at about 1:35 if you want to skip ... :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4xjFpI5Uxc

Not sure why of course, but it also makes me hungy from popcorn and Raisinets.

The first is DUH! welcome to the Clinton 'party' there Obama! Bill lying is at the least 10 year old news, closer to 15 years.

Second, when your enemies are trying to distroy one another, the only thing you can do is: GET THE H*LL OUT OF THEIR WAY!

That Bob Kerrey referred to Clinton as an unusually gifted liar, years before Monica Lewinsky. Good to see other Democrats catching on.

http://www.Race42008.com


Oh, and anyone still think that there will be a Clinton/Obama ticket come fall?


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WJC just lied again! by Achance
I had the misfortune of seeing him a few minutes ago on Fox recounting how he sat alone at home (good, no contradictory witnesses) listening to the I have a dream speech and how he was moved to become a part of the CR Movement by King's words. BS!!!

It should be very easy verify what, if any, live broadcasts were made of that speech and what, if any, were available in Hope, Arkansas. I'm two years younger than him and likewise grew up in a segregated, Southern state. I assure you that Southerners did not hang on MLK's every word and the kinds of people who owned radio and TV stations weren't going out of their way to pick up MLK's activities. There was NO live TV news to speak of in those days and most radio news was just some local guy reading the AP or UPI wire reports.

I was reasonably attuned to what went on in the World for a teenager, and that meant that I watched Huntley-Brinkley, all fifteen minutes of it, if I didn't have anything better to do. I remember knowing about a "March on Washington" and that's about it.

That statement by WJC should be followed up on, and I'm willing to bet a dollar to a doughnut that there was NO way he heard that speech live.

In Vino Veritas

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama's Clinton Education
January 23, 2008; Page A24

One of our favorite Bill Clinton anecdotes involves a confrontation he had with Bob Dole in the Oval Office after the 1996 election. Mr. Dole protested Mr. Clinton's attack ads claiming the Republican wanted to harm Medicare, but the President merely smiled that Bubba grin and said, "You gotta do what you gotta do."

We're reminded of that story listening to Barack Obama protest his treatment by the now ex-President Clinton on behalf of his wanna-be-President wife. "You know the former President, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," Mr. Obama told a TV interviewer. "He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts -- whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas."

Now he knows how the rest of us feel.

The Illinois Senator is still a young man, but not so young as to have missed the 1990s. He nonetheless seems to be awakening slowly to what everyone else already knows about the Clintons, which is that they will say and do whatever they "gotta" say or do to win. Listen closely to Mr. Obama, and you can almost hear the echoes of Bob Dole at the end of the 1996 campaign asking, "Where's the outrage?"

This has been the core of the conservative critique of the Clintons for years. So it is illuminating to hear the same critique coming from Mr. Obama and his supporters now that his candidacy poses a threat to the return of the Clinton dynasty. Even Democrats are now admitting the Clintons don't tell the truth -- at least until Mrs. Clinton wins the nomination.

Mr. Obama's two examples are instructive because they are so wonderfully Clintonian. On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Mr. Clinton attacked Mr. Obama's claims of having opposed the Iraq war all along as a "fairy tale." This is a tough charge coming from a two-term Democratic President in a Democratic primary, and it probably helped turn some voters against Mr. Obama.

But it was also a classic distortion intended to turn voter attention away from his wife's own Iraq fairy tale. She's the candidate who voted for the war and backed it for years before she decided she had to be sort of against it, only to later become really against it, and now to favor a withdrawal starting in 60 days. We think Mr. Obama is dangerously wrong about Iraq, but compared to Mrs. Clinton he's a model of consistency.

Then there's Mr. Clinton's moaning before Saturday's Nevada caucuses that his wife's supporters were being strong-armed by pro-Obama unions at casino voting sites. Clinton campaign allies sued and lost on the matter, and the former President sounded like a Chicago ward heeler as he told reporters about the Obama campaign's voter-intimidation tactics. Yet on the day of the vote Mrs. Clinton won at seven of the nine casino sites, and the Obama campaign was left asking if its vote had been suppressed. It wouldn't be the first time Mr. Clinton accused an opponent of doing something his own campaign was planning to do.

Some in the press corps argue that Mr. Clinton's attacks are hurting his wife. But if they were, he'd stop. His behavior is part of the familiar Clinton playbook of letting others do the dirty work so the candidate can stay above the fray. Hillary and other surrogates took on the task of saving her husband from his lies under oath by inventing the specter of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," calling Paula Jones trailer trash, and portraying the widely respected Ken Starr as a rabid partisan.

Now Bill is returning the favor by attacking Mr. Obama; at the same time, other surrogates raise his long-ago cocaine use, only to apologize after it's been widely reported. News reports also say that so-called robo-calls in Nevada repeatedly referred to Mr. Obama by his middle name, "Hussein." And emails suddenly appeared last week on Jewish lists accusing the African-American Senator of being fond of Louis Farrakhan. Mr. Obama had to disavow Mr. Farrakhan and his associates.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton can claim to disapprove of these attacks, and even assert that she herself is being unfairly picked on by the media because she's a woman. She wants to make the primary contest about race and gender, rather than about Mr. Obama's larger, more inspiring message of change. She can then diminish Mr. Obama and make the choice a trench fight for the votes of typical Democratic constituencies. You gotta do what you gotta do.

"I understand him wanting to promote his wife's candidacy," Mr. Obama added on Sunday, referring to Bill Clinton. "She's got a record that she can run on. But I think it's important that we try to maintain some -- you know, level of honesty and candor during the course of the campaign. If we don't, then we feed the cynicism that has led so many Americans to be turned off to politics."

Welcome to the education of Barack Obama.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120104819435508233.html


And check out Billy Boy’s latest purple fit–lashing out at a…CNN reporter:

Bill Clinton became visibly upset Wednesday over comments by a prominent South Carolina Democrat that compared the former president’s actions on the trail to those of infamous Republican strategist Lee Atwater.

In an interview with CNN’s Jessica Yellin, Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party and a supporter of Barack Obama, said some of Bill Clinton’s recent remarks on the campaign trail were appeals based on race and gender. He said the comments were meant to “suppresses the vote, demoralize voters, and distort the record,” and said they were “reminiscent of Lee Atwater.”

Clinton sharply disputed the charge, and lashed out at Yellin for raising the question.

“You live for this. This hurts the people of South Carolina,” he said. “Because the people of South Carolina come to these meetings and ask questions about what they care about. And what they care about is not what’s going to be in the news coverage tonight, because you don’t care about it.

“What you care about is this. And the Obama people know that. So they just spin you up on this and you happily go along."

[Jolie Rouge]

Liberal talk show host Ed Schultz appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews today. He tells Bill Clinton to stop lying about Barack Obama on the campaign trail. He uses Clinton’s lies about Monica Lewinsky as an example.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-X9tEOp19o

[Jolie Rouge]

Bill Clinton: Wife's 'defender-in-chief'
By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 24, 5:12 PM ET

WASHINGTON - It started with dismissive talk of a fairy tale, then deteriorated into more of a nightmare.

As he campaigns for his wife, Bill Clinton has been taking aim at her rival Barack Obama and the media with increasing rancor, trading the roles of elder statesman and supportive spouse for that of attack dog.

Obama is scrapping, too, going after the former president with increasingly heated criticism, and getting testy with reporters himself at times.

Bill Clinton, campaigning in South Carolina on Wednesday, complained that Obama had put out a "hit job" on him. He didn't explain what that meant.

"Shame on you!" he scolded a reporter who asked about the racial dynamics of the campaign in South Carolina. Clinton himself has repeatedly discussed the racial issue.

Leading Democrats supporting both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama have complained that things have gotten out of hand.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who endorsed Clinton, made a plea for "less acrimony" among the rivals.

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who backs Obama, called for an end to the "backbiting" and said Clinton's conduct was "not presidential."

By Thursday, it was left to an ordinary voter to call for a time out.

At a morning campaign stop by Bill Clinton just outside Columbia, S.C., a Clinton supporter urged her campaign to "stop taking the bait from Obama" and stick to the issues.

The former president allowed that it was "pretty good advice. It's probably good advice for me, too," he said.

Hillary Clinton found herself defending her husband when she would rather have been talking about her plans for U.S. financial markets.

"We're in a very heated campaign, and people are coming out and saying all kinds of things," she said in an interview with the AP late Wednesday. "I'm out there every day making a positive case for my candidacy. I have a lot of wonderful people, including my husband, who are out there making the case for me."

Obama's wife, Michelle, got her licks in Thursday.

In an e-mail to supporters, she wrote that "another candidate's spouse has been getting an awful lot of attention," and she urged people to make online donations. "We've seen disingenuous attacks and smear tactics turn people off from the political process for too long, and enough is enough," she wrote.

Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton seemed to cool their rhetoric a bit, if not entirely.

Obama told voters in Kingstree, S.C., that criticism directed at him should be taken as "a source of pride. It means I might win this thing."

Still, he repeated that if the Clintons or others "are making false assertions," he won't hesitate to respond aggressively.

Clinton, for his part, said that after "all the mean things" the Obama campaign has said about him, "I should be the last person to defend him. (But) if he wins this nomination, I'm going to do what I can to help him win."

Clinton's full-throated participation in the campaign seems at odds with earlier statements by his wife that, while she is proud of his record and values his advice, this is her show. "I'm going to the people on my own," she said in a September debate.

Stanley Renshon, a political psychologist at the City University of New York who has written a book about Bill Clinton, said that while the former president's campaign efforts might have some helpful effects for his wife in the short term, "long term, he's a minus."

All of the attention on him, Renshon said, "subtracts from something very important for Hillary Clinton, which is the idea that she is her own person, able to stand on her own two feet."

"It's another illustration of his own proclivity for putting everything out of center stage except himself, and unfortunately it's his wife who's running for president," Renshon said.

After listening to a speech by the ex-president at historically black Claflin University on Thursday, student Stephanie Jones put it this way: "Bill's trying too hard. It doesn't bother me, but I don't think it helps their campaign."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is neutral in the campaign, said he spoke recently to Bill Clinton about the negative tone of the race. "It's fair enough to point out the differences in policy, but it is important that the exchanges be of a positive nature and free from distortion and misrepresentation," he said.

Kennedy said he had also spoken with candidates, whom he did not name, about the campaign's rancorous tone and the harm it could pose to Democratic unity.

Obama hasn't hesitated to hit hard at Hillary Clinton. Early on, he served notice that he would "make sure that we take it to them just like they take it to us."

"I come from Chicago politics," he said this month. "We're accustomed to rough and tumble."

Of late, he has repeatedly questioned Hillary Clinton's candor and trustworthiness, including in a short-lived radio ad in South Carolina that said, "Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected."

The Obama campaign pulled down the ad Thursday after the Clinton camp stopped running a radio spot that was critial of Obama.

As for the former president, Obama said this week that Clinton had "taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling."

Renshon said Obama's sharp words serve to undercut his message of hope and change, but also could help to reassure voters he's tough enough to be president. "People do want to know you have somebody in the White House who can stand the heat," Renshon said.

How did it all come to this?

Surely, part of it is the enormous stress of an unusually long and hard-fought presidential campaign.

Bill Clinton this week clearly was still smarting over months-old barbs from the Obama campaign, and a belief that Obama hasn't been held accountable. "I never heard a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said Hillary was not truthful," that she had "no character, was poll-driven," Clinton said. "He had more pollsters than she did. ... When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called her the senator from Punjab, I never said a word."

The former president was referring to an Obama campaign memo from last summer that criticized Sen. Clinton's ties to India, making reference to her as the "Democrat from Punjab." Obama later said the memo was a mistake. As for Bill Clinton's reference to a "hit job," Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer pointed to documents the Obama campaign had circulated questioning the former president's financial dealings.

The Clintons have survived more campaign rough-and-tumble than most anyone on the modern stage. This is the power couple that a decade ago introduced "vast right-wing conspiracy" to the political dialogue.

Bill Clinton said Thursday that it's a lot harder to hear people criticize his wife than it ever was to be the target himself. "When I was running, I didn't give a rip what anybody said about me," he told a crowd of about 200 people in Lexington, S.C. "It's weird, you know, but if you love somebody and you think that they'd be good, it's harder."

Jeffrey Goldfarb, a professor of sociology at the New School for Social Research, predicted the former president's harsh words would work against whoever is the Democratic nominee, Clinton or Obama, in the general election campaign. "Very clearly, he's also undermining his status as a statesman, which can't be good for the Democratic Party," Goldfarb added.

Clinton's words against Obama sharpened when the campaign reached South Carolina, where Democrats vote on Saturday and Obama is leading in the polls. But the trend got its start on the eve of the leadoff New Hampshire primary, when Obama had just won Iowa and the former president accused him of misrepresenting himself on the Iraq war. "Gimme me a break," Clinton said. "This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale that I have ever seen."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_el_pr/what_about_bill;_ylt=Ase1Ryx7Lg..LgDCH6QYLJis0NUE

[Jolie Rouge]

Friday, January 25, 2008
Bill and Chelsea Need A Fact-Checker

Oops: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/01/bill-and-chelse.html


President Clinton has been touting his wife's commitment to Africa on the campaign trail by telling interested voters that "Hillary was the first U.S. Senator to call Darfur genocide." He used that exact line with voters in Aiken, S.C., yesterday, and it has been pointed out more than once over the course of this campaign.

The usually shy Chelsea also touted her mother's record on Darfur, telling a group at Stanford University earlier this month that she was "really proud that my mom was the first Democratic senator to call it genocide in May of 2004 and put a lot of pressure on the Bush administration to recognize it as genocide."

Problem is, the statements simply aren't true.


The first to call it genocide were actually Feingold (who mentioned the word in a committee hearing), DeWine (who first said it on the floor) and Brownback (who first wrote it into legislation). Three strikes, Hill.

Try asking them what the Clinton Administration did in regards to Rwanda ...

[Jolie Rouge]

1/31/2008
BILL CLINTON’S LIES ON GLOBAL WARMING

Did Bill Clinton really say we have to “slow our economy” to deal with global warming?


In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ‘cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? “Slow down our economy”?

I don’t really think there’s much debate that, at least initially, a full commitment to reduce greenhouse gases would slow down the economy….So was this a moment of candor?


A “moment of candor?” Or a journalistic faux pas? Here’s more from Bill:


“Everybody knows that global warming is real,” Mr. Clinton said, giving a shout-out to Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, “but we cannot solve it alone.”

“And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

“But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

(HT: Sadly No : http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/8637.html )

Obviously, Clinton was not recommending that we unilaterally slow down our economy to cut emissions. He was saying that just because we did, others wouldn’t necessarily follow suit.

But just what the hell was he saying? He was saying that “the fight” against global warming will create more jobs and build a “sustainable(?) economy” that will save the planet so that Californians won’t wake up one morning a hundred years from now in desperate need of water wings and flippers.

Earth to Brad: I congratulate you on calling Tapper out for his idiotic take on Clinton’s speech. But you missed the real story. What Bill said was a lie. A great, big, fat, Clintonian truthbusting whopper of a fib.

As much as scientists all agree that global warming is “real” – and they do – economists are in agreement that cutting our emissions even modestly will entail a huge cost to our economy. How much depends on what model you’‘re looking at (ironically, exactly the same as trying to glean how much warming can be expected over the next century). From a low of $500 billion over ten years to a high of $1.8 trillion over a decade are current estimates published in peer reviewed journals.

In case you were curious about what effect that might have on the economy, imagine all the global warming advocates in the world gathering together in one place, each of them with a $100 bill. Then imagine a bonfire where all of those millions of hundreds are burned while the greens take off their clothes, cover themselves in body paint, and dance a dabke in celebration.

Well…maybe they wouldn’t cover themselves in body paint. Maybe they’d just smear honey on themselves or vegetable oil. But you get the picture.

Taking that much money out of the economy would if not be catastrophic, it would certainly cause a long, painful recession. I haven’t seen a recent study on the number of jobs that would be lost so I won’t give a number. But economists are in almost unanimous agreement that the effect on job growth would be severe.

Bill Clinton is lying through his teeth by trying to make dealing with global warming a painless process. It won’t be. It will involve massive disruptions in industry and labor with some regions being hit very hard. We would have to alter our lifestyles not just in how we use energy and generate emissions but in fundamental ways we are just beginning to grasp. There will be a cascade effect on our society that no one – and I mean no one – can foresee.

Clinton talks of “building a sustainable” economy. Just what does he mean? What exactly does “sustainable” mean? Not surprisingly, no one knows. But it sure sounds good, eh?

Population growth alarmists talk about “sustainable” economies being able to support 1-2 billion people on earth. Meanwhile, the United Nations – in true bureaucratic fashion – has perhaps the most confusing (and sometimes contradictory) sets of criteria for sustainability that encompasses all facets of society, not just the economy.

But contained in many of these “sustainability models” is a streak of Ludditism – anti-capitalist, anti-business, anti-property rights, anti-growth; in short, anti-people and anti-freedom. This is the true agenda of some global warming fanatics. And I believe it is telling that Bill Clinton has adopted their nomenclature to lull us to sleep about the true cost of cutting emissions.

Now let me say that if this is what it would take to save the planet, we would have no choice but to initiate the kind of draconian policies that would harm our economy most severely. Let me further say that I believe that anthropogenic global warming is a reality although man is probably not to blame to the degree usually ascribed.

The problem isn’t whether global warming is “real” or not. The problem is that there is not one iota of proof that reducing emissions will lower the temperature. Zero. Zip. Nada. Common sense would dictate that it would but some models show differently. This is a part of climate science that all can agree is not settled – not by any stretch of the imagination.

So in effect, we are being asked to drastically alter our economy and our lifestyle on a whim and a prayer. No thanks.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to lower emissions by developing new (and old) technologies that would generate less greenhouse gas while working to wean ourselves from foreign oil supplies. It does mean that Bill Clinton is a lying sack of rotten potatoes when he tries to sell “sustainable” economic growth as a painless panacea for reducing our carbon footprint.


Bryan at Hot Air is on pretty much the same wavelength I am:

He goes on to serve up pipe dreams about how green tech like 100-mile-per-gallon cars will create more jobs, which seems unlikely. He’s also off in the weeds when he declares that anything is “the only way it will work.” That’s classic Clintonian fallacy: A complex problem, if it’s even a real problem, requires a complex set of solutions, supposing it’s even something we could solve.

The bottom line is that, for whatever reason, ABC actually played Clinton’s “slow down the economy” line unfairly and ended up downplaying his argument against the far left on global warming. I’m sure that will be too much mental jujitsu for the Clinton-hating, “conservative media” nutroots to handle.

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/01/31/bill-clintons-lies-on-global-warming/

[Jolie Rouge]

Where Has He Been?
February 17, 2008


An interesting comment from this post: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/17/673670.aspx
BILL SPARS WITH OBAMA SUPPORTERS


Me and my family used to be the biggest fans of Bill Clinton. Everyone in my community can't stand to see Bill on TV anymore. I'm not sure if its his older age or maybe the lack of sleep lately, but I truly believe his lost his mind. He makes no sense anymore, cares about nothing other than attempting to get his wife elected, plucks words right out of the air while stating nothing, and now even goes against the voices of mass voters...

Bill Clinton is really not he same person I USED to respect and admire!


Sorry, he's exactly the same person you used to (foolishly and myopically) respect and admire. He's the same person he's been his entire political career, going all the way back to the seventies in Arkansas. Anyone who has followed his career, or read non-hagiographic biographies of him knows this. The only thing that's changed is that you've found a new empty vessel into which to pour your emotional political longings, and he's attacked it, so now you see the Bill Clinton that the rest of us have seen all along.

[b]As I've said many times, I don't now, and never have "hated" Bill (or Hillary Rodham) Clinton. I find them far too trivial and unworthy subjects on which to expend such an intense and miserable emotion. I think that I'm in fact far more clinically objective about them than most Democrats have ever seemed to be able to be. The problem is not the "Clinton haters" (most of whom were merely pointing out the reality), but the far too many people who have loved him, far beyond reason, for decades. That was the source of his power.[/]

And now that the scales have fallen from the eyes of many like the commenter above, the end may be very ugly, particularly if they are perceived to have stolen the nomination from Obama (something that they are surely plotting as I write this). Denver may make Chicago in 1968 look like a Sunday-school picnic.

They've never cared about the Democrat Party, other than as a convenient vehicle for the conveyance of their unlimited and insatiable ambition and lust for power, and they've been a disaster for it ever since they hit the national scene. They cost it the Congress for the first time in four decades, and the party couldn't hold on to the White House at the end of their term, at least partly because of the stench of it in the minds of the voters in 2000. Having Bill Clinton campaign for a Democrat has generally been the kiss of death, but because of this irrational love of them, they've managed to keep on doing it.

When it comes to the Clintons, it's always about them, and they always come first, and the national Democrats are finally starting to realize it, sixteen years later. If they'd been smart, and listened to Arkansas Democrats at the time, they could have had the much earlier epiphany, and spared their party a lot of corruption and embarrassment.

Oh, when the end comes, it won't be as bad as the Ceausescus (this is America, after all), but it will certainly be as final. There will be no more comeback kids. If he's still around in a couple decades, I suspect that Bill Clinton will be continuously enraged and deeply envious of the legacy of George W. Bush.

http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/02/where_has_he_be.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Bill spars with Obama supporter
Sunday, February 17, 2008 5:21 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli

CANTON, OH -- Robert Holeman came to Timken High School here today with a message to deliver to Bill Clinton. He did -- and he said the former president wasn’t happy about it.

Clinton spoke to a capacity crowd in this Northeast Ohio town, the third of five events today in the Buckeye State. He told voters that the contest was “the power of speeches against the promise of solutions by a world-class change maker.”

Throughout the event, as Clinton made his case for his wife, Holeman’s dissenting voice could be heard. At times he simply shouted Obama’s name. When Clinton would set up a sure applause line, Holeman could be heard heckling. As soon as Clinton finished speaking, the Canton native made a beeline to the ropeline to give Clinton a piece of his mind.

“I asked the president to please stop the bickering between the campaigns,” Holeman said in an interview afterwards. “All this name calling is like the bully in the yard. He can’t get his way, he can’t get nothing done.” Holeman said he thought Clinton was “gasping for air.”

“This is the last hurrah. After March 4, Hillary Clinton will be out of the race for good, and Obama will take the commanding lead,” he said. “She should back him with her delegates immediately. That’s what I’m asking them to do.”

Holeman said that Clinton responded by saying Obama came after him first. Holeman also described Clinton’s reaction to him as “irate.”

“I think he even hit me in the face with his hand,” he said. “He did give me a little pop. It was okay, because I understand his tenacity for his wife.” Clinton did engage Holeman for a few minutes, at times pointing directly at him. It was unclear whether he did make physical contact, however.

Holeman said he did support Bill Clinton during his campaigns, but that now the country wants a “new perspective.” “I think the president’s trying hoodwink us, bamboozle us, put us back in the okie doke,” he said. “He had eight years to do what he was supposed to do. All the things he said that she’s gonna do, he had the same authority that he wants her to have. Now if one Clinton, the male Clinton can’t get it done, how is Ms. Clinton [going to].”

Several Clinton supporters who saw the exchange came up to Holeman after to -- shall we say delicately -- express their disapproval for his actions. More negativity, Holeman said. “Hillary Clinton has started the most negative campaign I have ever seen, other than what the Republicans can launch,” he said. “I think we need to come together on those issues.”

*** UPDATE *** Obama spokesperson Ben LaBolt said Holeman was "absolutely not" a plant by the campaign. And a spokesperson for President Clinton who was near the president said there was no physical contact.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archi...17/673670.aspx

[Jolie Rouge]

Harry Smith : Hillary Will Boink Bill With Her 'Frying Pan'
Mark Finkelstein
March 3, 2008 - 09:04 ET

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/03/03/harry-smith-hillary-will-boink-bill-her-frying-pan

Here at NB, we're not normally in the business of feeling sorry for MSMers like Harry Smith. But I can't help but express some sympathy for the Early Show anchor at the prospect of the feminist, Clintonite wrath that is likely to descend on his head after a comment he made this morning

Among the metaphors most likely to drive feminists up the wall is that of the angry woman yielding that symbol of domestic serfdom, the frying pan. But in discussing the prospect of Hillary's anger at Bill for his responsibility for her possibly impending defeat, Smith invoked . . . you guessed it. Harry was coffee klatsching with Dem consultant Joe Trippi and pollster Frank Luntz this morning, and it was the latter who first described Bill as a drag on Hillary's campaign. The issue was whether Clinton could stay in the race if she splits the Texas and Ohio primaries tomorrow.


JOE TRIPPI: I don't think she should get out if she wins Ohio and loses Texas but I think there will be pressure there.
FRANK LUNTZ: It didn't help her that her husband said that she's got to win both.
HARRY SMITH: Right.
LUNTZ: Bill has been -- I feel sorry for him the night, if she does pull out, he should not be at the home in Chappaqua.

That's when a chuckling Smith put his foot in it, even providing the sound effects.


SMITH: Boink! There's a frying pan flying someplace.


Duck and cover, Harry!

[whatever]

Just curious, are you a HIlary hater? I notice you dont post much about Obama.........

[Jolie Rouge]

Bill Clinton adopts new campaign role
By BETH FOUHY and MEAD GRUVER, Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 47 minutes ago

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. - This small Western hamlet, best known for a bloody race riot involving white and Chinese coal miners in 1885, might not be the first place one would expect to find the former leader of the free world.

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But here was Bill Clinton in southwest Wyoming, two days before Saturday's Democratic caucuses, telling about 1,000 people how his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would establish 10 clean-coal technology projects if elected president in November.

"Some environmentalists don't think we ought to be doing anything with coal, but they're wrong," he said. "Think about it, you could become, maybe, the first totally energy-independent state in the United States."

For a former two-term president, such chatter may sound like fairly mundane stuff. But months into the Democratic nominating contest, he still stumps vigorously for his wife across the country, still finding the right role for himself in an unprecedented and high-profile experiment in how best to help her.

Her advisers credit him with boosting her support among rural voters, especially men. He also phones through a list of party "superdelegates" almost daily, urging them to back the former first lady. And he has raised considerable cash for her campaign, both at events with the well-heeled and in online appeals to smaller donors.

Anticipating the next major primary April 22 in Pennsylvania, the former president was headed to Philadelphia for a meeting with city ward bosses Friday. It was then on to Mississippi, whose primary is Tuesday.

What he doesn't do — anymore — is criticize Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. And he has not appeared onstage with his wife since Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Still a beloved figure to many Democratic Party stalwarts, Bill Clinton remains a decidedly mixed blessing for his wife's campaign. While once viewed as an unmitigated asset, his angry tirades against Obama in New Hampshire and later South Carolina overshadowed her message and appear to have caused lasting damage to her candidacy among black voters, a key party constituency.

But campaign aides believe that after months of trial and error, they have finally found a role for the former president that plays to strengths without needlessly reminding voters of the theatrics of his White House years.

The answer: play the traditional political spouse.

"He was the first to acknowledge after South Carolina that he'd failed to anticipate how he'd be held to a different standard than other spouses," said Mike McCurry, who was Clinton's White House spokesman. "Right now, he's in a place he's very comfortable with. But I'm sure he's biting his tongue a lot."

On the trail, the former president travels to so-called "secondary markets" that receive less media coverage, and to rural areas. His speeches now focus on policy and on his wife's strengths, after months where he seemed to talk as much about his own record as he did hers.

It was far different in New Hampshire, where he dismissed Obama's opposition to the Iraq War as a "fairy tale," and in South Carolina, where he lectured reporters on their alleged bias in favor of the Illinois senator. When Obama won there by a landslide, Bill Clinton appeared to marginalize him as just another popular black politician in a heavily black state.

Since then, black voters in state after state have largely abandoned Hillary Clinton, contributing to a string of losses she suffered last month to Obama.

It was a glaring stumble for a man once so popular with blacks that Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison dubbed him the "first black president." Hillary Clinton even offered an apology of sorts for her husband's behavior in South Carolina when she addressed the State of the Black Union conference last month.

"If anyone was offended by anything that was said — whether it was meant or not, misinterpreted or not — obviously I regret that," she told PBS's Tavis Smiley, who hosted the conference in New Orleans.

McCurry, for his part, said the close state of the race and the likely importance of superdelegates to the outcome again has made Bill Clinton an important asset for his wife.

"Wooing superdelegates is the best possible way to use him," McCurry said. "The currency and sway a former president brings to that process is pretty substantial. A lot of them have spent time in the Oval Office, probably at his invitation. And his calling them will remind them what a huge responsibility it is to be president of the United States and how we need someone in there who is ready to do the job."

But Ari Fleischer, a former spokesman for President Bush, said Bill Clinton had badly overshadowed his wife just when she needed to establish her own identity and credentials as a candidate.

"If she loses, his role will be looked back upon as one of the unique surprises of the campaign," Fleischer said. "How can someone so popular with the base of his party hurt his wife so badly? And how did he underestimate the unique power that a former president has, especially one with his strength and sense of drama?"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080307/ap_on_el_pr/bill_clinton;_ylt=Anta0XkyIwIB7d3w2HwbqbCWwvIE

[Jolie Rouge]

Bill Clinton regrets language used in tirade
1 hour, 39 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Add to former President Clinton's regrets this campaign season a stream of invective while commenting Monday on an unflattering article in Vanity Fair magazine. "President Clinton was understandably upset about an outrageously unfair article," Jay Carson, a spokesman for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, said after her husband's remarks appeared on the online Huffington Post, "but the language today was inappropriate and he wishes he had not used it."

Huffington Post writer Mayhill Fowler reports that she approached the former president while he campaigned for his wife Monday in Milbank, S.D., and asked for his reaction to the article "The Comeback Id" by national editor Todd S. Purdum in the July issue of Vanity Fair.

Purdum mulls the state of Clinton's mind given the wealth he has amassed in recent years, the negative impact he has had at times on his wife's campaign, his negative comments about her rival, Barack Obama, the company he keeps with jet-setting millionaires, and his health after heart surgery in 2004. In analyzing Clinton in more than 9,500 words, which include those of anonymous sources, Purdum asks, "What's the matter with him?"

Clinton had no doubt about what's the matter with Purdum, whom he called "sleazy" in the Huffington Post interview.

"He's a really dishonest reporter," Clinton said during the tirade that followed, according to Fowler's report. "And I haven't read (the article). There's just five or six blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy."

Reminded that Purdum is married to his former press secretary Dee Dee Myers, Clinton responded in part: "That's all right — he's still a scumbag."

The former president added: "He's just a dishonest guy — can't help it."

Clinton went on to observe: "It's all politics. It's all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don't think anything about it. But I'm telling ya, all it's doing is driving her supporters further and further away — because they know exactly what it is — this has been the most rigged coverage in modern history — and the guy ought to be ashamed of himself. But he has no shame. It isn't the first dishonest piece he's written about me or her."

A call to the New York office of Vanity Fair for comment Monday night was not immediately returned.

___

On the Net:

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Vanity Fair: http://www.vanityfair.com/


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080603/ap_on_el_pr/bill_clinton_vanity_fair_1;_ylt=AjBqgg3ACAVwPqC4pI heZw4b.3QA